Recent reading has revealed how different times have different attitudes. I mentioned that I had read the Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan last month. I carried on with the Richard Hanney stories. What I found amazing was the level of casual racism in these stories from a highly educated and respectable man.
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940
After a brief legal career, Buchan simultaneously began his writing career and his political and diplomatic careers, serving as a private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in southern Africa. He eventually wrote propaganda for the British war effort in the First World War Buchan was in 1927 elected Member of Parliament but he spent most of his time on his writing career. In 1935 he was appointed Governor General of Canada by King George V. He occupied the post until his death in 1940.
Having read 3 more of the stories I now understand why only the 39 Steps stands alone in his list of books as being memorable